Tag Archives: SCFS

The Seamen’s Christian Friend Society, ICMA’s newest member, has offered its correspondence Bible studies to other members of the Association.

Martin Otto, author and port chaplain in the Port of Hamburg, Germany, wrote:

As new members of ICMA, we would like to find a way of making a positive contribution to our fellow members, over and above our cooperation at local level. [The] Bible correspondence courses [were] written by ourselves but we would be happy to make them available for other ICMA members to use free of charge and without the need for any copyright payments. These courses are not necessarily suitable for all seafarers, but they have been written in simple language with seafarers in mind. One attraction of these courses is that the seafarer is able to read them in the privacy of his own cabin without any pressure or undue influence from anyone else. We find that seafarers of many nationalities welcome the opportunity to investigate the Christian faith in this way and thousands of seafarers have completed this course in recent years.

The Bridge

“The Bridge” contains a basic outline of the Christian gospel. The student is provided with an answer sheet that can be sent to the distributing chaplain for marking. Some ICMA members might like to mark the answer sheets themselves – but SCFS is more than happy to see to this on their behalf if preferred. The Bridge is available in 24 languages. SCFS is able to supply ICMA members with a CD containing all these languages so that the courses may be printed off locally, as and when they are required for distribution.

Grace for the Weak

Grace for the Weak, another of the correspondence courses that SCFS are willing to share with ICMA members, is very useful for ship-based study in groups or in ship-based churches.

If any ICMA member would like to discuss the use of these courses they are welcome to contact Volker Lamaack in Hamburg, at volker.lamaack@scfs.org

Vision – The International Christian Maritime Association will become the leading ecumenical and professional association of maritime ministries seeking to strengthen its Members’ maritime ministries for seafarers’ well-being.